Beach Day!

 So it was a month ago..... But the Branch had their annual end of summer beach party and we went.  It was at Torii Beach, which was really nice.  And, you could rent stuff!  We rented a paddle board for an hour.  And an hour was not long enough!!

Delaney trying out the water.  It was warm and delightful.

Callie did a lot of beach combing and found some lovely shells. 

Unfortunately, most of the nice ones were inhabited.  Which only made her love them more. 

 Silly boys!  (Josh didn't have any swim trunks and wanted to keep his pants dry.)  

I wore my awesome hat and did not get sunburned.  This is my "I was there too" photo. 

Rylee was not very adventurous.  But she had a good time. 

Marian and Delaney, sharing the paddle board.  Josh took a spin on it and did a great job- managed to keep his pants dry the whole time too!  But I didn't have my phone then and didn't get any pictures of him.  The girls were less.... balanced.  They tipped all the way over once.  And fell off once.

Dan got in and enjoyed the water. 

Doing okay. 

Losing it a little..... 

Splash! 

And now trying to keep Dan from stealing the paddle board. 

This was as far as Rylee wanted to go.  It was a fun day.

My Boy!

I went to the High School Orientation with Josh and Marian.  It was rather disorienting because I knew I had been there and I knew I had walked those sidewalks, but the only thing that was vaguely familiar was the cafeteria. None of the buildings had any memory for me.  But I did recall Dragon Hill!  And here is my boy, standing in the very same place that at some point in time, I am sure I must have stood also.

EEEEK!

Today I walked the kids to school with the dog.  I kissed the girls goodbye, and Levi and I had a leisurely walk back to the house (84 degrees, 82% humidity at 7:20 in the morning, gag).  I let Levi sniff stuff, because he's a dog and he likes to sniff and we weren't in a rush.  So when he was very interested in a particular spot, I let him take a look.

It took me a minute to realize there was a shrew lying there that he wanted to investigate.  About the time I realized this, the shrew stopped playing dead.  I did not want Levi to accidentally eat it or kill it so I was trying to haul the dog away from the panicked and chittering little beast.  Levi was scrabbling to play with his new friend, who was trying to bolt into the grass.

Unfortunately, in his uncoordinated attempts to do anything at all, Levi grabbed the wee beastie.  I yanked the leash and the shrew went flying through the air and smacked into me.  I shrieked like a little girl, thinking it was going to fall down my shirt.

Fortunately, the little shrew bounced off and scuttled away and I got my dog under control before I got my heartbeat back to normal.

Nothing like a little screaming on the neighbor's lawn to get your adrenalin up in the morning.

Coolest Library Ever!

The girls had friends in town from Iwakuni and we all went to meet up at the library.  So AWESOME!

They had this room full of circuitry that you could use to create all kinds of things.  The lights were fun, but the ones that made dreadful siren noises were what the girls most enjoyed.  Not o much the adults.

Rylee was having fun.

Delaney really had a good time with it.

And Callie was methodical in her execution.

Annabelle, Delaney and Rylee making cacophonous noises to their delight.

We also discovered that they had a VR room! 

Watching Callie grasp at air was probably just as entertaining as whatever she was seeing.

Marian was also a hoot, and she enjoyed it very much.

Cool things.

Mainland Japan seemed to have a heart of creatures to catch, but Okinawa is the critter kingdom!

Check out this giant grasshopper!

And this adorable baby gecko.  These guys are all over the house and make chirping sounds to keep you company.

This is the view I get every time I drive through the base.  But the ocean is a lot easier to see than this picture shows.

Can you see the rainbow?!